Max Read

Since 2011, the semi-legendary spam Twitter feed "@Horse_ebooks" has been under control of Jacob Bakkila, a Buzzfeed creative strategist who used to tweet under the handle "@agentlebrees."

Bakkila revealed his identity in an art installation called "BearStearnsBravo" at the FitzRoy Gallery on Chrystie street in New York. In a series of tweets from the Horse_ebooks account at around 10 a.m., Bakkila gave out the project's name and a phone number.

In the back room of the gallery, Bakkila (center) and two others were answering phones, reading out lines from the twitter accounts to people who called in. In the front room, two 20something men dressed as "security guards" wandered around.

Bakkila was on the phone the entire time, so I wasn't able to ask him about the project, but the accompanying text indicated that he has only had control of the account since September 14, 2011—six months before Gawker's profile of Alexei Kuznetzsov, the Russian spammer who originally created the account. (Around the time Bakkila says he obtained control of the account, @Horse_ebooks changed its method of tweeting to "from web," and a variety of conspiracy theories arose.)